Gunman flees to China after New Taipei City murder

槍手在新北市凶殺案後逃往中國

Assailant changed clothes multiple times after killing victim in ambush


TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — A man who allegedly murdered a man in New Taipei’s Xindian District on Monday (Nov. 22) dodged the police and escaped to China mere hours after the crime.

Xindian Precinct police received a report of a man who collapsed at around 8 a.m. on Monday.

When officers arrived they found the man, surnamed Ho (何), 45, had suffered an out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, with two gunshot wounds on the left side of his neck. The police found four shell casings at the scene.

The murder was carefully planned. According to surveillance footage, the assailant arrived wearing a red hoodie and hid in front of Ho’s residence at 6:30 a.m. At around 7 a.m., when he saw Ho getting into his car with a child, he refrained from attacking and waited for Ho to return alone.

At 8:13 a.m., the assailant shot at Ho four times. Ho was declared dead at the hospital at 9:29 a.m.

UDN cited the police as saying that when the shooting occurred, Ho’s wife, youngest daughter, and in-laws were in the house and were horrified by the incident. Ho's neighbors had a favorable impression of him and did not understand why he would have been targeted.

The police said that while Ho was in the coffee business prior to his death, he had been accused of manufacturing drugs in the past, per UDN. They believe the shooting was likely planned by someone familiar with Ho.

A task force directed by the Taipei District Prosecutor's Office identified a 30-year-old man surnamed Huang (黃) as the suspect in the case after an overnight investigation, reported CNA.

After the murder, Huang allegedly drove a silver sedan to a shopping center in Xindian, where he abandoned the vehicle, changed, and took a taxi to Longshan Temple MRT station. He changed again at the station and took another taxi to Taoyuan International Airport, where he boarded a plane headed for China at around noon, according to CNA.

The police found a gun containing one bullet in the drain outside an airport terminal and believe the weapon could have been used in the attack.